1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to vending machines for single serve beverage cartridge containers and, more particularly, is concerned with such type of a vending machine having mechanisms for executing locking, indexing and dispensing operations so as to facilitate efficient handling of these types of cartridge containers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A single serve beverage market has grown up around the use of containers in pod, capsule or cartridge form that hold single serve beverage ingredients, such as for coffee, and are intended to be received in automatic machines, such as specialized coffee brewing machines, to brew and dispense a single cup of coffee in a few minutes. These cartridge containers are generally cup-shaped, with a truncated conical side wall gradually tapering outward from a bottom to a top end. The side wall at the bottom end is closed by a substantially flat bottom wall, while at the top end the side wall defines a circular access opening usually larger in diameter than the bottom wall. The side wall at the top end also usually has an annular-shaped lip protruding radially outwardly from the side wall and surrounding the access opening and a lid sealed upon the lip so as to overlie and close the access opening. These cartridge containers may enclose other features that facilitate the brewing operation in the specialized machines. Additionally, these cartridge containers may contain other types of product ingredients unrelated to single serve beverage ingredients.
Recently, interest has stirred in the vending machine market to develop an approach that is adapted to bulk store the cartridge containers with beverage ingredients in different flavors so as to allow users to be able to select between the different flavors and then to singly dispense a single cartridge container corresponding to the user's selection. One approach to bulk storage and selective dispensing of these cartridge containers one at a time is that of the vending machine disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0186907, published Jul. 25, 2013.